A CHOIR has launched an appeal after a thief stole almost £1000 raised at a charity concert.

Ticket money for a Last Night of the Proms-style performance by the St Hilda’s Festival Chorus and Orchestra, at St Hilda’s, Whitby, in North Yorkshire, was stolen moments after the concert finished, on Saturday 19 November. The group had spent about a year preparing for the evening, which was arranged to raise funds for St Catherine’s Day Hospice in the town. A thief who had posed as a friend of the Vicar knocked cash boxes on to the floor and, as he picked them up, took the contents of one before replacing the lid.

The choir chairman, David Higgins, said: “We thought people in the church were trustworthy, and all of a sudden that trust has gone out the window. It’s a horrible, despicable crime, but now we’re hoping to raise the money again.”

By Wednesday, £705 had already been donated via the website www.justgiving.com/owner-email/pleasesponsor/Denise-Murphy27.

Police appealed for witnesses, and described the thief as aged in his late twenties or thirties, about six foot tall, with dark hair and stubble, and wearing a cream jumper and jeans.